


A New Hobby

by caimani



Series: 31 Days of Halloween [16]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Gen, Haunted Houses, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 06:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16342004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: There’s a beautiful white Victorian house on the hill at the end of Garden Drive. It’s got a FOR SALE sign near its mailbox, with a small card underneath the realtor information that says “Not Haunted.”That sign is lying.





	A New Hobby

**Author's Note:**

> Day 18: Trespassing
> 
> I think this is a fun twist to the whole haunted house trope. Ive already written two haunted house/building fics this month, so I wanted to try something different.

There’s a beautiful white Victorian house on the hill at the end of Garden Drive. Three floors, a finished basement, a large porch, a greenhouse, an elaborate garden on sprawling grounds, and it’s even fully furnished. It’s got a FOR SALE sign near its mailbox, with a small card underneath the realtor information that says “Not Haunted.”

That sign is lying.

Shane and Ryan are in the attic, staring out of the small round window at the realtor exiting her car, followed by a young couple. The man and his wife both look very excited at the sight of the house. None of them look up to see the ghosts in their attic.

“They look dumb enough to buy this place even if we knock something over right in front of them,” Ryan says.

“What, were you already planning on doing that?” Shane asks. “Don’t tell me, the bookshelf in the office?”

“Of course,” Ryan says. It’s been pissing him off for months that the realtor redecorated the old sunroom as an office. He messes with the wiring in it constantly, and he’s been trying to knock books off the shelf, but he can never quite focus his energy in time to spook prospective buyers. 

“Either that or lock them in the greenhouse,” Ryan amends. “That scared off the last couple that came to look around.”

“It’s easy locking them in the greenhouse,” Shane says. “They just blame it on the old hinges, or the weather.”

Below, the couple and realtor have gotten to the porch, and Ryan and Shane can’t see them anymore. They float down through the floors to the downstairs living room. Shane sits down at the piano and struggles with the fallboard for a moment, before giving up and blowing on the decorative wind chime in the corner of the room. 

The chime rings just as the front door opens. Ryan frowns. Not the best timing; the couple probably didn’t even notice. He flies up to the second floor landing and makes the wood creak noisily. Then he pokes his head down to see if the couple reacted at all.

Nope. They seem completely oblivious.

“We need to do something more obvious,” he calls to Shane, who has left the living room to regroup with Ryan. 

“Like what, sending chills up their spines?”

“Maybe,” Ryan says. He flies back down and moves around so he’s right behind the couple. Okay… the guy or his wife? They both look dumb as hell. He goes for the guy. He drags his fingertips along the length of the guy’s spine. The guy definitely shivers, but he doesn’t say anything because he’s listening to the realtor tell an abridged history of the house.

Every time, she leaves out the fact that it’s currently haunted by two impish ghosts. 

Ryan stamps his foot, frustrated. “We could try making something float again?” he suggests to Shane.

“That didn’t work out too well last time,” Shane reminds him. “And it takes up too much energy.”

Ryan glares at the backs of the couple’s heads. How to keep these two idiots from buying the house… They start walking towards the living room, and Ryan and Shane follow. Shane moves the wind chime again, but all that gets is the wife saying “Oh! Isn’t that a beautiful chime!”

Ryan tries pushing over the potted plant on the coffee table. His hands keep passing through it, no matter how hard he concentrates. Before he can even get a single leaf to stir, the couple and the realtor are moving on.

“Fuck!” Ryan yells, kicking at the plant. His foot passes through it too. Fucking ghost physics.

“Hey, calm down,” Shane says. “If nothing else, we can do the greenhouse.”

“Yeah,” Ryan grumbles. 

They follow the couple to the kitchen next. Ryan manages to make the kitchen window’s curtains stir, but only when the dumb idiot and his wife are oohing and ahhing over the marble countertops. Shane tries and fails to make a knife float.

“This isn’t working,” Ryan says. “Usually they notice something by now.”

“The realtor’s noticed,” Shane points out. The realtor had given the curtains a concerned glance, but is back to highlighting the best features of the kitchen.

“All of the realtors know this place is haunted,” Ryan says. “Even if this one has never been in here, she’s probably heard from her coworkers.” That also explains why they’ve seen so many different realtors come through this place in the past few months. 

Soon, the couple leave the kitchen and go to the dining room. Unfortunately, all of the nice china has been locked up in cabinets, where it’s harder to grab them and throw them on the floor. Instead, Shane and Ryan team up to make the chandelier lights flicker.

“Uh oh,” the guy says, and for a beautiful moment, Ryan is hopeful. “Old wiring?”

“Actually!” the realtor says. “That was me!” She points at the light switch on the wall and demonstrates how the lights can be dimmed.

“That wasn’t you!” Ryan yells.

“Quick recovery, though,” Shane says. “She’s good. Or just determined to finally sell this place.”

“This place is _ours_ ,” Ryan snaps. “Nobody’s buying it.”

Disgruntled, they follow the couple and the realtor through the other rooms on the first floor. Since their efforts aren’t quite working, they need to conserve their remaining energy for something big. Something that’ll scare the shit out of the couple--that the realtor won’t be able to explain away with a laugh. They even leave the office alone, although there is a book lying conspicuously open on the floor that Ryan knocked off the shelf a few days ago. 

But of course, the couple doesn’t even notice. 

“These two are like, straight out of a horror film,” Shane says as they follow the couple upstairs, breathing on their necks and making them shiver. “The ones who just ignore all the signs until it’s too late. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember horror movies,” Ryan says, reaching out to poke at the realtor. “And yeah, I’d agree with you there. But I don’t want _anyone_ in here, especially not these two.”

“They probably wouldn’t think to call a priest or anyone to try and cleanse the place,” Shane says. He stops moving suddenly. “Oh! Ryan! That’s it!”

“What?” Ryan says, irritated that the chills are having no effect on the idiots.

“We can let them move in--”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They’re going to mess up the place!” Ryan says, throwing his arms up in the air. “And it’s not like we can curse them or anything. All we can really do is--”

“We can mess with them,” Shane says. “Like… turning the dryer off or hiding their keys. Draining their phone batteries. All the stuff we do whenever they show up, but we get to do it every day!”

Ryan makes a face. He looks at the couple, and then back at Shane. 

“And we can make noises in the attic and go quiet when they come up to investigate,” Shane goes on.

“ _If_ they come to investigate,” Ryan says. “Ugh, I don’t like the idea of anyone moving in, though.”

“Listen, they’re talking about having company and family over,” Shane says. “They’ve got to have friends or relatives with more of a sense of self preservation than them. Those people try and investigate, it’s even more fun.”

Ryan hates this. He likes having the house all to himself and Shane. But… Shane does have a point. Nothing they’ve done is affecting the couple. They both seem like they’re very interesting in buying the place. So… it looks like it might be time to change their hobby from scaring off potential buyers to seeing how blatantly they can haunt the house without the husband and wife realizing. 

Ryan sighs. “I hate this. I hate them.” 

Shane grins. “You know what we’ll be able to do once they start buying groceries?”

“What.”

“Leave them vague messages or threats written in condiments and watch them each think the other is responsible for them.”

That… actually sounds like a lot of fun. Ryan finds himself smiling at that.

“Alright, whatever. But let’s at least try one last thing to scare them off before we admit defeat,” Ryan says.

“The greenhouse?” Shane asks.

“The greenhouse,” Ryan agrees. This time, he's going to turn the lock right as they're looking at the door. Even these two dumbasses have got to notice that's not normal.

That afternoon, the FOR SALE sign is removed. The next week, as Dana Wright goes downstairs to start a pot of coffee, she finds a glass bottle of ketchup smashed on the marble countertop and WELCOME smeared across the surface. 

“Ugh, Matt,” she groans as she opens up a cabinet to get the all purpose kitchen cleaner. 

If she would just look in the reflection of the kitchen window, she might see the shapes of two ghosts cackling behind her back. But she doesn’t. 

And so it begins.


End file.
